CH 16

My alarm clock goes off at exactly seven in the morning. I struggle to wake up, my brain still groggy owing to the sleeping pill.

I sit on the bed and take a moment to refresh myself, and the memories of last night recur a little as my consciousness awakens.

In the past, whenever I am having a nightmare, even if I cannot remember anything the next day, the pain that is engraved in my bones and the tremors of my body still haunt me for some time. But it is different this time. In the fragmentary flashbacks, the solid embrace in the darkness and the soft reassurance in my ears are all too overwhelming, overshadowing the heart-wrenching pain, as if it is just another bizarre dream.

Being alive is not something to be ashamed of, you do not need to apologise to anyone.

That is the first time someone has told me that. So it is not just his face going for him after all.

A smile spreads across my lips, then I suddenly remember that when I woke up from the dream last night, I also broke down in tears and was held for a long time in Shang Muxiao’s arms as he soothed me. I held onto his clothes for dear life, like a drowning man grasping onto his last lifeline, and did not let go of him until I cried myself to sleep again.

I bury my face in my palm, unable to believe that I could cry like that, especially in the presence of Shang Muxiao.

There is no telling how he will laugh at me about it…

Disgruntled, I wash up and psych myself up before going out of my bedroom.

Shang Muxiao is not on the sofa, and there is a strange smoky smell in the air, as if something has burnt.

Alarmed, I follow the smell to the kitchen and there I see Shang Muxiao, sitting at the table enjoying his meal, with a takeaway bag on the side, and a variety of breakfast meals on the table, like steamed buns, flower rolls, soy milk and congee… which almost fills the small table.

“You’re up.” He sees me and lifts his chin, gesturing for me to come over to eat.

“What is this burnt smell?”

“It’s the congee.” He appears to be completely well now. With his appetite increased, he takes two bites of a flower roll and goes for the next one even before he can swallow the one in his mouth, a far cry from the weak appearance he had yesterday when he had trouble eating. “I was going to cook congee, but in just a blink of an eye it burnt, so then I ordered takeaway.”

Sweeping his eyes over the bin in the corner, he says with a look of distaste, “The pan is ruined, I just did not bother washing it. I will compensate for it with a new one later.”

I look over and almost do not recognise my small milk pan. The once vivid mint green surface has gone black, and the enamel coating inside is thick with burnt carbon; it looks like a completely different pan. It is indeed like what he said — ruined.

“No need, it is already old too, not worth that much,” I remember that there is a full set of this pan, which Shen Luoyu gave me when I moved here, saying that it is a brand from abroad. The advantage is that it is good, the drawback being its price. The total price of the set she gave me was over five figures. It was quite hard for me to receive it from her, and given that it is expensive, I rarely used the pan at all.

I never imagined that it would meet such a tragic fate at the hands of Shang Muxiao.

“Minced pork congee with century egg, have some?” He lifts the cover of a plastic bowl and pushes it in front of me.

I nod and reach for the plastic spoon in the takeaway bag.

He does not mention anything about last night, nor does he show any intention of mocking me, which makes me wonder if last night was nothing more than my imaginary dream.

“Has your fever gone down?” Sitting at a table having a meal and not conversing is always a little awkward, so I try to find something to talk about.

“Yeah. It went down late last night.”

“Did you speak to your sister already?”

“Mmn.” He takes a sip of soy milk and wipes his mouth with a paper towel, probably done with his meal. “I will return home tonight.”

After breakfast, we head off to school together using my car, and as we are on different campuses, he gets off at the gate.

“By the way…” He opens the door of the car and is about to get out when I call out to him and tell him about the passing of Mr. Huang from the support group.

Perhaps someone inquired about the funeral to Liao-jie as she sent a group message yesterday with the time and location, saying that those who want to send Mr. Huang on his last journey can attend, and those who are not able to do so are also fine, that everyone can arrange it according to their own schedule.

The funeral service is scheduled for this afternoon, and as I have no classes to attend at that time, I plan to go and send Mr. Huang off.

“So that old fellow passed away.” Shang Muxiao looks apathetic and seemingly unsurprised. “Are you going?”

“I am.”

He thinks for a moment before saying, “Then I will go with you.”

That surprises me, as I expected him not to. After all, he has only participated in the support group once and probably does not remember how many people were in it when he first attended.

Ultimately, I tell him that we will meet at the school gate at two o’clock that afternoon, to which he nods and says okay, gets out of the car and walks away.

–

I finish my morning classes, have lunch, and spend some time in the office perusing documents, unknowingly getting a little engrossed. If not for Shang Muxiao’s message saying that he is already waiting at the school gate, I would never have noticed that it is already time.

I assume he is going with me in my car, but when I arrive at the gate, I see a familiar blue and white sports bike parked on the roadside. The rider has his helmet on and one foot propped up on the ground. Regardless of whether it is the picture or the rider himself, both are like models in a poster, and despite the fact that nobody can see his face, he still attracts a lot of stares from passers-by.

I pull up to his side, lower the window and ask, “So you will be following me?”

Opening the visor, he raises a brow and says, “What, are you afraid I won’t be able to keep up with you?”

The subtext seems to convey: “With that tortoise speed of yours, I’ll let you go ten yards and I have no fear.”

Without another word, I draw up the window and drive ahead of Shang Muxiao to lead the way, and the thirty kilometre entire journey will only take us an hour.

–

Today is a fine sunny day, free of wind and rain, and whilst the temperature is low, it does not make one feel cold; such good weather.

Upon our arrival, a crowd of people had already gathered around Mr. Huang’s tombstone, each holding a white chrysanthemum in their hands, wearing solemn and mournful expressions.

There is a man standing at the end of the crowd. He is either a funeral service worker or a member of Mr. Huang’s family, clad in black and holding a handful of white chrysanthemums in his arms. He sees us approaching, and asks for our identity and gives Shang Muxiao and me a flower each.

We stand at the far end and can only hear indistinct talking at the front, which seems to be Mr. Huang’s son giving a eulogy.

After about two minutes, as the eulogy finishes, the crowd begins to move, and one by one, they come forward to lay their flowers.

Shang Muxiao and I are the last two to go there. The tombstone is already covered with flowers, the old man in the photo is smiling warmly, and the place where the urn is placed is engraved with a dazzling line of golden characters — you all are still young, live well.

He actually chose to have this inscribed as his epitaph, almost like… his final words of advice to us, the younger generation, who came to his funeral.

The solemn emotions in my heart dissipate, and I feel a little amused and warm, just like the sunshine today. Even in such a cold season, I feel the slightest warmth.

The funeral ceremony is simple and brief. I spot a few familiar faces from the support group in the crowd, but they just nod as a greeting from afar and leave without much exchange after the funeral.

Shang Muxiao and I head back to the cemetery gate together. I do not know if he has been affected by the atmosphere at the funeral as he seems very quiet throughout the walk.

“This is the first time I have attended a funeral.” Shang Muxiao suddenly says as we near the gate.

Upon hearing this, I feel that something is amiss. This is his first to attend a funeral, so where was he during his mother’s?

As if he hears my thoughts, he continues in an apathetic voice, “When my mother had her funeral, I was not allowed near and had to stand at a distance, held by a nanny. It was because my dad said that my mother would not wish to see me.”

It is only a moment ago when I feel the sunshine warming me up, yet somehow at this moment the coldness creeps back in. Although my relationship with my parents is also very distant and indifferent, it is not as hostile as his. I can hardly imagine Shang Lu saying such words to a five-year-old child.

“The day she died, she asked me if… I wanted to go somewhere with her. I had always been afraid of her, she never liked me, and other than always flipping out on me, she blamed me for ruining her career, so I intuited that this ‘somewhere’ was not a good place and I refused. She became angry all of a sudden and forcefully pushed me out the door and dumped me in the rain, and would not open the door no matter how much I cried.” At this point, he lets out a mocking laugh. “Only when I grew up did I realise that she was talking about taking me to the Netherworld, which indeed was not a good place to be.”

“Everyone says that she is sick, that that is not what she wanted, and that I should forgive her.” He is walking in the sunlight, but his voice is cold enough to drop ice crystals. “But I’m also not culpable of her being sick, why can’t I hate her?”

We reach the gate. Our vehicles are parked not far away. He stops on his way and I cannot help myself but also stop.

“Her paintings are so full of life and have such beautiful symbolism. Looking at those wonderful colours brings instant tranquillity to one’s mind. She gives her best side to others, her worst side to me.”

So that is why he wanted to destroy the ‘The Courtyard View’, to destroy what in his view is spurious to the point that it is sickening. He had grown up with his parents’ condemnation and had never received an ounce of warmth from them; his sister was all he had.

Yet now, Shang Yunrou is no longer his’ alone.

He is standing in front of me, hands in his jacket, clearly in his prime at twenty, but with eyes full of fatigue and resentment towards the world.

You all are still young, live well. He has seen this message too, but is at a loss as to what amounts to living well.

“This is also the first time I have attended someone’s funeral.” I say, “Twelve years ago, when the funerals of my three friends who were in a car accident with me were held, I was still lying in a hospital bed, hardly able to get up.”

Shang Muxiao faces me with a calm expression on his face, looking not the least bit surprised.

“You have seen it. I am still mired in nightmares to this day. I have not been able to escape from the tragedy.”

I do not know when the notion of ‘acceptance’ has become all the rage. To be able to deal with all kinds of events; neither in sorrow, nor in joy, nor in resentment, nor in hatred; to seek inner peace and take it upon oneself to attain great wisdom, mind pure and free of distracting thoughts. It is as if to harbour selfish desires is to be inferior, and to show hatred is to be unjustifiable.

“Schopenhauer believed that the primary way to eliminate pain and suffering from our lives was not to wean ourselves off life, but to achieve the extinction of the will to live through the practice of abstinence and austerity. When the will is gone, one will no longer suffer. By inference, what really proves that you are alive is instead the outpouring of extreme emotions, those moments of irrepressible outbursts of desire, of doing things that can only bring ‘suffering’.”

I stare into his eyes and say slowly, “So it’s okay to not be able to let go. Not everything can be easily erased from your life.”

It is okay not to come by acceptance. It is utterly okay to hate. Life is a cluster of magnificent glowing flames, fuelled and strengthened by these ineradicable desires.

It is probably the first time he has heard of this theory, tilting his head slightly for some time to grasp it.

“Is it okay that I can’t let go of it?”

“It is.”

“Is it also okay to hate her?”

“It is.”

He says nothing for a while, looks at me with a smirk, and leans down towards me all of a sudden.

“Very well.”

Before I can even react to what he is about to do, I feel a very light brush to my face, a soft tactile sensation that feels like it is charged with electricity, numbing the half of my body that perceives normalcy.

“This is my reward to you for taking me in these days. I’ll be going now, see you at school tomorrow.” Like a naughty child who has succeeded in his prank, he scampers off after the kiss, waves his hand with his back to me and turns to get into his sports bike.

I am left still in shock and can only watch as he drives off.

Until I can no longer see him at all, I raise my hand, my fingertips gently touching the spot of skin he has kissed, and then I quickly withdraw my hand, clenching it into a fist.

Returning to the car in a sleepwalking manner, my eyes sweep across the rearview mirror and I find my entire face flushed.